Senate Democrats press Bessent for answers on DOGE access to Treasury systems

Leading Democrats on the Senate Banking and Finance committees are seeking answers from the Treasury Department about DOGE’s access to agency data and what it’s doing to make sure something like that never happens again.

In a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent dated Tuesday, Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Ron Wyden of Oregon railed against the agency’s decision in early 2025 to allow two employees with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency to gain entry to Bureau of Fiscal Service payment systems.

That access sparked litigation, congressional outrage and examinations from government watchdogs, which found “unacceptable” privacy risks due to the fact that BFS systems house the personal and financial information of millions of individuals and handle almost 90% of all federal payments.

“Any disruption of the system or its contents could have catastrophic consequences for the economy,” Warren and Wyden wrote in the letter, shared first with FedScoop. “We seek information on the Department’s efforts to ensure that such a breach has been repaired and never occurs again.”

Warren and Wyden, ranking members of the Senate Banking and Finance committees, respectively, refer back in their letter to the Government Accountability Office’s audit of DOGE’s foray into BFS systems: the Secure Payment System, the Payment Automation Manager, and the Central Accounting Reporting System.

The lawmakers recounted GAO’s conclusion that under Bessent’s leadership, the department “failed to ensure that a DOGE employee agreed to follow Treasury’s IT security rules and was unable to detect improper payment information transmissions.”

The letter highlighted myriad issues found by the watchdog, including a DOGE employee sending unencrypted payment information regarding foreign aid to the General Services Administration, an action that could have exposed the personally identifiable information of more than 350 people.

“Though this employee did not have the ability to access systems themselves, they could request that bureau staff provide any payment system data of interest,” the letter stated. “Concerningly, BFS has been unable to provide a list of systems and data viewed by this employee, due to the lack of controls regarding this access.”

Warren and Wyden appeared similarly troubled by a June 2026 Treasury Office of Inspector General report that found a DOGE staffer had “improperly sent unencrypted PII outside of Treasury without any prior approval,” and a non-response from BFS to the GAO on three recommendations to improve data access controls.

On the latter point, the Senate Democrats asked Bessent to respond to their letter by Aug. 4 with details on Treasury’s plan and timeline for implementing the GAO and OIG recommendations. 

The lawmakers also asked the secretary for details on what specific data in BFS systems was accessed by DOGE and what unencrypted information was improperly sent by the DOGE representative to GSA. 

Additionally, Warren and Wyden want more information about access granted to a DOGE member that allowed them to “create, modify, and delete” Secure Payment System data, as well as documentation on security audits on Treasury systems prior to DOGE access and whether Bessent knew of existing regulations around access before it was granted. 

“It is essential that Congress fully understand the extent of DOGE’s improper access to federal payment systems,” Warren and Wyden wrote, “and any threats to the systems posed by this improper access.” 

The Treasury Department did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.